Monday, August 10, 2020

A gallery of 12 forthcoming historical novels for summer and autumn 2020

I don't know about you, but I'm looking ahead to late summer and fall reads. Forthcoming in the next few months are a bumper crop of historical novels, ranging from new releases by longtime reader favorites to debuts from talented newcomers.  While WWII settings are still holding steady in popularity within the genre, there's plenty on offer for readers seeking to expand beyond this time frame and the 20th century in general.  Below are just a dozen among many that caught my attention, in order by author surname.



Cathy Marie Buchanan moves back in time to pagan 1st-century Britain with Daughter of Black Lake (Riverhead, Oct.) while Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle's Even As We Breathe (Univ Press of Kentucky, Sept.) follows a young man from the Cherokee Nation into WWII-era intrigue. The Glass House (Flatiron, Sept.), the final novel from the late Scottish novelist Beatrice Colin, tells a story of secrets and friendship in early 20th-century Scotland.

The Evening and the Morning (Viking, Sept.), the highly anticipated prequel to The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett's best known epic, focuses on the English settlement not yet known as Kingsbridge around the time of the first millennium CE. Another series entry, Dark Tides (Atria, Nov.) by Philippa Gregory, picks up her heroine Alinor's story, following her trials in Tidelands, in Restoration-era London. The Mermaid of Jeju (Alcove, Dec), Sumi Hahn's debut novel, centers on the haenyeo, female deep-sea divers, on Korea's Jeju Island after WWII.



There are three debut novels in this second collage. Denise Heinze's The Brief and True Report of Temperance Flowerdew (Blackstone, Sept.), the first of these, takes its name from the historical woman who married two Governors of Virginia in the early 17th century. Confessions in B-Flat by the prolific Donna Hill (Sideways, Nov.), is a love story taking place in New York during the 1960s civil rights movement and Vietnam War years. For The Deadly Hours (Sourcebooks, Sept.) newest in a growing collection of multi-author collaborative projects, Susanna Kearsley, C.S. Harris, Anna Lee Huber, and Christine Trent trace the story of a mysterious gold watch and those it affects, beginning in the 18th century.

Two more debuts: Asha Lemmie's Fifty Words for Rain (Dutton, Sept.) has the unique viewpoint of a young girl of African-American and Japanese heritage in post-WWII Japan, and her search for her rightful place in a world that continually rejects her. The Company Daughters (Bookouture, Oct.) by Samantha Rajaram journeys along with its two heroines on their voyage from Amsterdam to marry settlers in the Dutch East Indies in the early 17th century. And, last alphabetically, Alice Randall's Black Bottom Saints (Amistad, Aug.) is set amid Detroit's historic Black Bottom neighborhood in the 1930s-40s and centers on the stars of this locale's famous art and culture scene.

10 comments:

  1. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Gregory’s Tidelands (I’ve skipped her last few Tudor books), and am look forward to Dark Tides. It will be interesting to see how The Mermaid from Jeju compares to Lisa See’s wonderful The Island of Sea Women. And The Company Daughters sounds really intriguing, and it’s only 99 cents to pre-order on Kindle!

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  2. I'm in agreement on Tidelands and felt she was back on form with it. The Island of Sea Women is one I haven't yet read, but Lisa See is always very good. On the same subject, there's also Mary Lynn Bracht's White Chrysanthemum, which was very good, though not easy to read at times.

    I actually did preorder The Company Daughters (who can resist the price?).

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  3. I just saw an interview with Lisa See (and Sue Monk Kidd) where Lisa talks about wanting someone else to write a book about the female deep-sea divers on Jeju Island (this was before she wrote the book) and then deciding that meant she needed to write it herself. Very interesting that someone else has now done so too! (I confess I haven't read any of Lisa See's books.)

    I'm very intrigued by Even As We Breathe (I love the cover), as well as The Glass House (love books about female friendships and secrets!).

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  4. It's interesting how multiple authors converge on the same subject around the same time!

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  5. Nice selection of reads. I've got one of them and looking forward to reading it.

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  6. Hope it's a good one.

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  7. As always your lists are bad from my TBR list!

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  8. Mine too! Glad you found some books for the TBR, Marg.

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  9. Hmm, I'm making note of the Temperance Flowerdew book. She's one fascinating woman--lived through the Starving Time and the Massacre of 1622 and married to Sir George Yeardley, one of the better colonial governors--gotta read that one!

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  10. What a great name - and I hadn't even heard of her before this.

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